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Valentine Morgenstern
This article uses material from the “Valentine Morgenstern” article on the Shadowhunter wiki at FANDOM and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. 'Valentine Morgenstern '''was the husband of Jocelyn Fray, and the father of Sebastian and Clary. An advocate against Downworlders, Valentine led the Circle with the main goal of ridding the world of them. After his initial failure, his new objective became the reformation of the Shadowhunters as a whole. Biography Early Life Valentine Morgenstern was born to Oskar and Seraphina Morgenstern. Seemingly from a wealthy family, he was raised in Idris and spent his childhood in a valley not far from Lake Lyn. His father raised him as a warrior, causing Valentine to both hate and love him. When he was old enough, Valentine attended the Shadowhunter Academy in Alicante and excelled. His good looks, charisma and charm made him popular among both staff and fellow students. With his manipulative and charismatic personality, Valentine quickly gained many followers. In particular, Valentine befriended a large group of unpopular and outcast students, with whom he soon formed the Circle, an organization with the goal of reforming both the laws and society of the Shadowhunter world. This goal changed, however, after the death of Valentine's father, who was supposedly killed by a werewolf. The incident changed Valentine for the worse and ultimately shaped his views and advocacy against Downworlders. The central ideal of The Circle changed from the reformation of the Shadow World to the destruction of all Downworlders, with the belief that the humans were the superior beings on the planet. Valentine's extremist beliefs intensified to the point that he came to believe that Downworlders were demons in human form who should be exterminated altogether to cleanse the world. Through all this, Valentine became particularly close to Lucian Graymark, who soon became his ''parabatai, and the latter's best friend, Jocelyn Fairchild. At the young age of nineteen, he married Jocelyn and moved into the Fairchild manor to be with her. In the cellar of his new home, Valentine secretly conducted most of his experiments on Downworlders, demons and the angel Ithuriel, whom he somehow managed to summon, imprison, and torture for information regarding the Mortal Mirror. Valentine also began studying magic and had learned to perform spells; he began to summon demons and angels, and continued creating magical items. Experiments Through his experiments, Valentine found out that consuming or ingesting the blood of demons and angels had varied effects. The demon blood enhanced his powers for a short period of time, and the angel blood also gave him temporary incredible strength and a feeling of sudden euphoria and happiness. Knowing this had minimal effects on him because he was an adult, he decided to take his experiments a step further. When Valentine found out that Jocelyn was pregnant with his first son, his recent discoveries inspired him to experiment on their child. He summoned the Greater Demon Lilith and asked her for her blood to use on his unborn child, hoping to make a personal soldier, who would be the strongest Nephilim warrior. Though Lilith warned Valentine that her blood would eventually burn out all of the humanity in his child, Valentine did not realize how true the warning was until much later. During Jocelyn's pregnancy, he gave her doses of Lilith's blood in her food and drinks without her knowledge, hoping that the blood would have a more profound effect on an unborn child than it did on himself. Unfortunately, Jocelyn also experienced side-effects from ingesting Lilith's demon blood, including vivid and terrifying nightmares. Suddenly suspicious of her husband's strange actions, Jocelyn told Luke about her fears, which led Luke to confront his parabatai about what he had been told. Realizing that his wife and his friend knew too much about his secret activities, Valentine was able to convince Jocelyn to abandon her worries about him; he later took Luke with him on a raid of a werewolf pack, where he left Luke to be bitten. Valentine, Jocelyn, and Luke waited weeks to see if he had contracted lycanthropy from his bite, and after the first full moon, it became clear that he had indeed Turned. Valentine, upon learning that Luke was indeed a werewolf, led him to the nearest forest and, after giving him his own kindjal, told him to kill himself, as he was unable to do it himself. Valentine then left Luke, trusting that Luke would choose to die instead of continuing to live his life as a Downworlder. Not knowing that Luke was unable to bring himself to do it, Valentine told everyone that Luke had committed suicide out of shame for having contracted lycanthropy. After Luke's 'death,' Valentine appointed Stephen Herondale as his new right hand man. Since Stephen was married to Luke's sister, Amatis, Valentine convinced Stephen to leave her, because in his eyes, Amatis, being a sister to someone who had been turned into a Downworlder, was an unfit wife for his top lieutenant. Instead, Valentine convinced Stephen to marry Céline Montclaire. Stephen ultimately began a relationship with her, and, shortly after they were wed, Céline became pregnant. Wanting to learn the difference between a Shadowhunter child exposed to demon blood, and one exposed to angel blood, Valentine also began conducting another experiment on Stephen and Céline's unborn son. He gave Céline, and thus the child, doses of Ithuriel's angel blood, in the guise of potions and medicine for her child. By this time, Jocelyn had also already given birth to their firstborn son, whom Valentine named Jonathan Christopher. While Valentine adored his child, though Jonathan was foremost his experiment, Jocelyn felt that something was wrong with him. She was extremely unnerved by Jonathan's soulless black eyes and eerily quiet and calm demeanor, and suffered intense depression and guilt over her disgust toward her own child. Wanting to soothe her pain and despair, Valentine spiked her food with Ithuriel's angel blood in hopes that it would help improve her condition. This went on for a long time, until, unbeknownst to him, Jocelyn was once again pregnant, and was exposed to Ithuriel's blood in the same manner as Stephen and Céline's son, making their second child another, though unintentional, prenatal-experiment. When Stephen was killed during one of their raids, a depressed and eight-month pregnant Céline slit her wrists and bled to death. Desperate to salvage his experiment, Valentine, with Hodge's help, managed to cut the child out of her womb, who had miraculously been able to survive due to the high concentration of angel blood in his veins. Hodge then temporarily took care of him. The Uprising During this time, the Circle's plans took a terrifying turn, with Valentine promoting a plan to destroy all Downworlders in order to pass a strong message to the Clave. The plan was simple: he, along with his followers, would trap the Downworlders in the Accords Hall at the time the Accords would be signed, where they would be easily overtaken, as no weapons were permitted in the Accords Hall. Unfortunately for him, Jocelyn, who had long since become disillusioned by Valentine and the Circle's mission, plotted with Ragnor Fell, for her protection, and with Luke, whom she and Ragnor found alive. She and Luke met with other Downworlders to warn them of the Circle's plans and make their own counter plan with the inside information provided by Jocelyn. Together, the Downworlders were able to band together with the rest of the Clave and arm themselves before the battle, ultimately resulting in the deaths of most of the Circle members, as well as many Downworlders. This event was later recorded in Nephilim history as the Uprising. Faked Death Realizing his wife's treachery, and knowing the Clave would be eager to punish him for his crimes, Valentine burned the Fairchild manor and faked his own death, as well as his son Jonathan's, by placing his necklace around the neck of fellow Circle member Michael Wayland and trapping him and his young son in the demon fire he set on the home. When the remains were studied, it was determined that Valentine and Jonathan, as well as Jocelyn's parents, were killed in the blaze. Taking Michael Wayland's identity, he moved into the Wayland manor where he raised Stephen and Céline's son. He raised the boy, who grew up with the name Jonathan Wayland, both cold-heartedly, yet with a touch of love and kindness. As for his real son, Jonathan, he raised him brutally and without remorse in a small remote cottage outside Alicante. Ten years of training the two boys passed. Eventually, Valentine realized that Jace was "too soft" for what he had plans to do, and thus needed to be rid of Jace before he could continue his timeline. He planned to have Jace sent to the Lightwoods, knowing that since Michael Wayland had been Robert Lightwood's parabatai, they would take in Michael's son, where he would be raised with love and would be given his best chance. Valentine also sent him there in case a time ever came that he needed Jace as an inside-man, a decoy, or bait. To have a valid excuse, Valentine, with the help of Emil Pangborn and Samuel Blackwell, again staged his own death as Michael Wayland in front of Jace. Jace was then sent to the New York Institute, as expected, and put under the Lightwood family's care. Valentine had since then stayed in their cottage with Jonathan, where he was able to focus solely on training his demonic son. He trained him both in the art of killing and in deceiving, instilling his ideals in him, and building him up as the weapon he hoped he would be. However, along the way, Valentine also realized that, due to his demon blood, Jonathan was more cruel than he had hoped for, and that even for his plans, Jonathan was too dark and evil. Throughout all this time, Valentine never stopped loving Jocelyn. At some point, he obtained an inter-dimensional apartment and had a room and clothes prepared for her, just in case she ever decided to come back to him. Resurgence Valentine reappeared in the radar seven years later, his presence acknowledged and spreading among demons and the Downworld, particularly in New York, where his wife and former parabatai had settled. Valentine had since developed a more extreme ideal: to rid the world of the "tainted" Shadowhunters and replace them with a new army. At the moment, however, Valentine had to settle with an army of demons and Forsaken, some of his old followers, and, of course, Jonathan. His plan was to obtain the Mortal Instruments to summon the Angel Raziel and ask him to create a new race of Shadowhunters. He began with the Mortal Cup, which Jocelyn had taken with her to New York when she fled Idris after the Uprising. Jocelyn had caught onto him, however, and had drunk a potion that put her in a deep, coma-like state to prevent him from being able to torture her for information about where she had hidden the Mortal Cup. Despite this, Valentine still took Jocelyn's comatose body and kept her with him at Renwick's. When Valentine was told about Jocelyn's daughter, Clary, he initially assumed that she was Jocelyn and Luke's child rather than his own daughter, though he did find out the truth eventually. Through Hodge Starkweather, a former loyal follower in the Circle whom Valentine had promised to free from his curse, Valentine was able to spy on the Conclave members of the New York Institute, and when Clary, Jace, and the Lightwood children had finally found and taken the Cup from Madame Dorothea, Hodge passed the Cup onto him, in exchange for Valentine lifting Hodge's curse. Valentine also took Jace with him, who immediately recognized him as the man who raised him. Though Jace was surprised, Valentine easily won back his trust with lies; he told Jace that someone had learned the truth about him years ago and sent him a letter about it, and claimed that he had to fake his death to get away from the blackmailer's demands. Eventually, Clary and Luke found out that Valentine was staying at Renwick's. With Luke's new pack of werewolves, they rushed over to rescue Jace and Jocelyn. When they finally met, Valentine took pleasure in playing with their emotions and bringing them misery. He revealed to Clary that he was her father, and that she and Jace were biological siblings. Luke, under the mistaken assumption that Jace was Jonathan, confirmed this for her. Valentine was briefly, though falsely, apprehended by Luke who wanted him to go with him to Idris to reclaim the Cup. The tides turned, however, and when Valentine killed Alaric, and Luke ultimately chose to stay with his fallen comrade. Jace, who had turned against him after being briefed about Valentine's dark past, tried to take Luke's place as Valentine went into the Portal, stopped only because everyone knew that Jace would never be able to beat Valentine in combat. With a last-ditch effort, he tried to coax Jace into joining him. When Jace refused, he took Jace's armed hand and placed the seraph blade over his chest, knowing full well that Jace would not have it in him to kill the man who raised him. After this, he walked through the Portal, and quickly destroyed the Portal's mirror in order to prevent them from coming after him. The next phase of Valentine's plan was to steal the Mortal Sword and make the Sword demonically-aligned, with which he could then use the Sword to summon and control demons to use for his own ends. To achieve this, he needed to perform a process called the Ritual of Infernal Conversion, using the blood of Downworlder children from each of the four species. To help in his goals, he had the Greater Demon of Fear, Agramon, summoned by Elias, a young warlock who was killed by the demon after the summoning. Once Elias was killed, Valentine took his blood, as a Child of Lilith, to be used as the first step in the ritual. With Agramon's help, Valentine was able to steal the Sword from the Silent City, killing several Silent Brothers in the process, and implicating Jace, who had been locked in the Silent City by Inquistor Herondale for his insubordination, as an accomplice, even though he had no hand in the matter. The next child he attempted to get to was a werewolf cub, named Joseph, whom he found and killed outside the Hunter's Moon. Unfortunately for him, he was interrupted by Bat Velasquez who caught him draining the young cub, forcing Valentine and Agramon to leave before they could get enough blood. Though delayed slightly, Valentine moved on with his plans and succeeded in killing and draining the blood of a young faerie in Central Park. To get back at Clary, Jace and their friends, Valentine captured their young Downworlder friends Simon Lewis, a vampire, and Maia Roberts, a werewolf. He took them to his ship on the East River, which was not only protected by a horde of demons, but also untraceable because of the body of water. At one point, Valentine again attempted to convince Jace into joining him, to no avail. Valentine was then contacted by the Inquisitor, Imogen Herondale, who had long despised him and blamed him for the death of her son, Stephen. Imogen bargained Jace's life in exchange for the Cup and Sword, both still believing that Jace was Valentine's spy, as well as believing that Valentine would never be able to condemn his own son to death. Contrary to her assumptions, Valentine easily refused her offer, confirming that Imogen was wrong on both accounts. Soon after, the Inquisitor and the rest of the Conclave proceeded with their raid on the ship. Meanwhile, Jace, Clary, Luke, and Magnus were already on their way. The Shadowhunters were able to rescue his Downworlder hostages and defeated the demons with few casualties. Clary, who was revealed to have a gift with runes as a result of the additional angel blood in her veins, used an amplified "open" rune to destroy his ship. Despite this debacle, Valentine quickly recovered, and was eventually able to perform the Mortal Sword ritual, having drained enough vampire blood from Simon, and completing it with the blood from a werewolf he had killed in Idris. The Mortal War With the Sword and the Cup in his possession, Valentine was capable of summoning unparalleled numbers of demons. With several Shadowhunters gathered at Alicante, Valentine sent his son Jonathan, disguised as Sebastian Verlac, to the city to deactivate the demon towers with his demon blood. Once the city's wards were down, Valentine released a horde of demons into Idris while all of the adult Shadowhunters were holding a Clave meeting at the Gard. Afterward, Valentine surprised the Shadowhunters gathered at the Accords Hall by appearing to them as a Projection. Valentine used the opportunity to offer them a deal: surrender to him, accept his sovereignty and rule to avert a war, and allow for a permanent loyalty rune to be placed on them, binding them to him. Valentine made it clear that if they refused, his demons would murder all of them; he added that he wouldn't mind their loss, as he intended on using the Mortal Cup to create more Shadowhunters. Angered, Inquisitor Aldertree charged at him, and though Valentine was merely a Projection to them, Valentine was still able to somehow kill him by shoving his hand into Inquisitor Aldertree's chest. He then issued an ultimatum to the Nephilim, announcing that they only had until midnight the next day to decide. Because of this, the Shadowhunters debated their next course of action. Though many were considering surrendering to him, Clary ultimately turned the tide within the Shadowhunter community by showing them the Alliance rune she had "created" to allow Shadowhunters and Downworlders to share their ability to make them more powerful. From there, the Shadowhunters chose to ally themselves with the Downworlders who had arrived just in time to help them against Valentine and his demons, even despite the objections from Malachi Dieudonne, who was then Consul, the highest member of the Clave, as well as Valentine's long-time loyal spy who shared Valentine's elitist attitudes. When Valentine heard of the Clave's decision from Malachi, he told Jonathan to take the wards down again if the Clave's decision did not change by midnight. Unbeknownst to them, Jace had tracked Jonathan and followed Hugin, Valentine's crow, to their hideout. Once there, Jace was engaged in a fight with Jonathan after Valentine had left to go to the Mortal Mirror, also known as the Lake Lyn of Idris, to complete his summoning ritual. When Malachi called for Valentine, Clary eavesdropped on them. Malachi told him that, according to Hugin, Jace was at the valley of their cave and was fighting with Jonathan when he left. He also admitted to Valentine that he believed that the underage Shadowhunters, those who were not among the voters in the Council's decision, should not be punished for the elders' decision, to which Valentine agreed. Malachi also wanted to ensure that he and those who had already drunk from his Cup and who had sworn loyalty to him would be unharmed. Exasperated, Valentine confirmed this and ended the conversation by making his Projection disappear. After he left, when Malachi threatened to kill Clary, Valentine's pet Hugin savagely killed him, instead. While Jonathan was able to unleash the full force of their demonic army on Alicante, having brought down the wards again, Jace managed to kill him. Meanwhile, Valentine had already begun his preparations for summoning the Angel Raziel. As the battle commenced in full swing, Valentine was confronted by his daughter, Clary, though he was able to quickly apprehend and bind her with a spell that kept her from being able to move or talk. He saw her arrival as a sign from the angels that he should use his daughter for the final stage of his plans, which involved drawing a large amount of blood from her from a wound that would kill her. However, Jace arrived before this could happen and fought him. Left with no choice, Valentine stabbed Jace with the Mortal Sword, killing him. Valentine briefly grieved for Jace, whom he loved as a son in his own twisted way, but then quickly moved on with his summoning. Using Jace's blood for the ritual, he stained the Cup and Sword with his blood and threw the Mortal Instruments into the Lake. This is where Valentine's plans began to unravel. Unbeknownst to him, Clary had changed the rune that signified his name to her name on his ritual circle, which took the protection against the angel's wrath from Valentine and gave it to Clary. So, when Valentine summoned Raziel, who was enraged that Valentine would summon him after doing so many unspeakable things. Raziel knew that Valentine's desires for the creation of a new race of Shadowhunters and to rid the world of the existing Nephilim, who allied with the Downworlders, were born out of a selfish need for power, and not as a selfless wish to protect mankind, as was Jonathan Shadowhunter's wishes when Raziel had granted him his help at the genesis of the Nephilim. Immediately after Raziel informed him that he would not be convinced, he struck Valentine with a fiery arrow, which cleaved through his chest and killed him instantly. He then apologized to Clary for killing her father, though she was more upset about Jace's death; since she was allowed one favor from Raziel, as her name was in the summoning circle, she used it to bring Jace back to life and correct Valentine's cruel action. Postmortem Upon his death, Valentine's demons immediately fled, abruptly ending the battle which, due to the alliance between the Shadowhunters and Downworlders, the demons were already losing anyway. His body was later cremated in a quiet, civil ceremony attended by Jace, who had finally learned of his true heritage as Stephen Herondale's son, Jocelyn, Luke, and some of his remaining followers. Clary did not attend this ceremony. Not only did Valentine's several attempts of ruling the Shadowhunters and ridding the world of Downworlders fail, but his actions indirectly paved the way for sealing the alliance between the two groups even further. Representatives from all four Downworlder species each received representative seats on the Council, something that Valentine had fought for years to prevent. Even months after his death, his memory continued to haunt several of the individuals he directly affected. Jonathan, who was also resurrected by Lilith, remembered Valentine as the man who raised him as a soldier but not like a son. Jace found himself missing Valentine, or at least the idea of the only father he ever really knew.6 Clary and Jocelyn, both of whom had moved in with Luke after his and Jocelyn's engagement, were constantly reminded of their connection to Valentine by those in the Shadow World, despite neither wanting anything more than to be dissociated from him forever. Also, what remained of Valentine's most loyal followers decided to ally themselves with his son, Jonathan, in his new plans for the Clave, though they were all ultimately killed following the destruction of the Infernal Cup. Personality Valentine embodied the classic traits of the evil overlord: charisma, a genius-level intellect and a narcissistic sense of entitlement. He was a sadistic, domineering, and power-hungry Machiavellian-type, and somewhat of a sociopath, driven by a furious rage and hatred brought about by his father's death at the hands of a werewolf. Despite this deep-seated anger, he usually maintained great emotional restraint in the face of dramatic situations, maintaining a demeanor of cool calculation and icy composure. He even considered empathy and compassion to be weaknesses. He was also extraordinarily manipulative, able to bend others to his will with relative ease. He also exhibited a very dry, dark, cruel wit. He viewed no one as his equal and saw others as either tools to be used or obstacles to be demolished. Despite his vindictive nature, Valentine presented himself in a cultured and sophisticated manner, dressing in expensive suits and speaking in a polite, civilized, almost old-fashioned manner. Despite everything, Valentine did not consider himself evil; instead, he viewed himself as a heroic figure, willing to challenge the authority of the Clave and even Heaven. He tried to justify his actions as being for the good of humanity and the world despite the numerous atrocities and acts of genocide he had committed in the process. He was also once a truly caring person, having formed bonds with not only his wife and former friends, but even Jace, whom he treated with a mixture of care and cruelty, as well as emotional and psychological abuse. Jace himself shares many of Valentine's personal traits such as his vain and narcissistic side, his love of battle, his skill as a Shadowhunter and his sardonic wit. In turn, Valentine in fact got most of his traits and base beliefs from his own domineering father, whose death made Valentine felt compelled to avenge. Valentine was once concerned only about the future of his kind, having originally set out to have the Clave revolutionize its rules and have more Shadowhunters created with the Mortal Cup. Valentine first began to seriously develop his final persona after his father's death by a werewolf and his mother's subsequent death from heartbreak. Blaming the death on the werewolf, his ideals changed from making the Shadowhunters more effective in ridding the world of demons to "cleansing" the world of its demonic influence and corruption, whose "taint" he believed also extended to Downworlders. This extremist-belief eventually even extended to the Clave and the Shadowhunters who associated with Downworlders. His reasons and actions made him a hypocrite. For one, his new objectives led him to eventually work and ally himself with the same demons that he initially sought to destroy. With his narcissistic nature, he also refused to see any fault in himself, his reasoning, or his actions; and, in some cases, he would shift the blame of his own offenses onto someone else, as he did with Clary, whom he blamed for his wife's betrayal, never accepting or even considering it was him who actually drove her away. In other words, Valentine became the very example of the kind of Shadowhunter he hated and sought to destroy. Additionally, another reason Valentine despised Downworlders so much developed subliminally: he grew to become jealous of the powers they have that Shadowhunters don't, such as their innate speed, immortality, and ability to use magic. It was this jealousy that led to him eventually experimenting on himself by injecting himself with demon and angel blood. Because of these experiments, his ex-wife Jocelyn described him as being as close to a warlock as a Shadowhunter can get. Valentine went to extreme lengths to achieve his goals. No one, not even children (his own, or those born to others) were safe from him, as he experimented on his firstborn child while he was still in womb (something he would come to regret for the wrong reasons), and even came to resent his daughter, considering her a mistake whose existence was the reason he lost his wife. In the end, Valentine referred to his losses as the sacrifices he made to dedicate himself to his cause, and even in the face of death and Raziel's wrath, he still refused to believe that what he was doing was not only selfish, but also wrong-- when Raziel pointed out that Downworlders do have souls, unlike the demons, Valentine threatened to "compel" Raziel into giving him what he wanted. Ultimately, it was his vanity and lust for power that brought upon him the "justice of heaven" at Raziel's hands, as the angel knew Valentine's supposed righteous crusade was neither honorable nor altruistic; rather, it was a conquest of power and glory, built upon a legacy of blood and bones. Physical Appearance At six feet tall, Valentine was described as a formidable man with a wide chest and thick muscular arms. Considered handsome and good-looking, Valentine had sharp features, an almost triangular face with a hard, pointed chin, black eyes, and hair so fair it was nearly white. Trivia * He was a skilled carver in his youth. * In Clary's dream world, Valentine was a hero in the war against Hodge. He died saving the Clave and the Mortal Cup. * According to Jace, Valentine's personal motto was ''"Deus volt" '' - "Because God wills it." * His grandchildren (except Ash) don't know that he is their actual grandfather. Category:Shadowhunters Category:Villains Category:Circle Members